For You
by Amputation
Summary: He supposed that perhaps it had happened that day they'd met in the lab at Bart's, the day John had offered Sherlock his phone and the brilliant man had asked 'Afghanistan or Iraq' Oneshot. Canon compliant to The Reichenbach Fall, AU post-SE2E3. T to be safe. Minor Johnlock,


**A/N: **Since filming has started for Sherlock season 3, I couldn't help but write this up. This is my very first foray into writing for BBC's Sherlock, so I'm very nervous indeed. I doubt this is what Moffat and Gatiss will have happen during the time skip between SE2 and SE3, but I can wish. John is just too much of a BAMF in this series, and I desperately wanted to play that aspect up. Also, please forgive me. I'm American, so I tried to keep it pretty generic as my knowledge of British slang and colloquialisms come only from watching BBC shows.

This is (at least one-sided) Johnlock, so if that's not your cup of tea, then I'm sorry. This is unbeta'd and I do not have a Britpick on hand, so all mistakes are my own. Thanks, and please drop me a review, anon or not! I appreciate the feedback.

* * *

**For You**

_Written by Amputation_

* * *

When life leaves you high and dry, I'll be at your door tonight, If you need help, if you need help … I'll lie, cheat, I'll beg and bribe To make you well, to make you well.

When enemies are at your door, I'll carry you away from war … I'll share in your suffering, To make you well, to make you well.

When you fall like a statue, I'm gon' be there to catch you … Not a thing will prevent me. Tell me what you need, what do you need?

I surrender honestly. You've always done the same for me.

You're my back bone. You're my cornerstone. You're my crutch when my legs stop moving. You're my head start. You're my rugged heart. You're the pulse that I've always needed.

Baby, I'm not moving on, I love you long after you're gone.

Like a drum, my heart never stops beating for you.

_Gone, Gone, Gone __- _Philip Philips

* * *

He was more than a crack shot. John had discovered the skill on accident during his first tour in Afghanistan. It was back during a raid on a non-civilian village as his battalion had engaged the insurgents. Bullets had flown around him, and he'd kept back as he'd been trained to do. As the medic he needed to remain safe. He could heal, and that was more valuable than doing damage. So that was what he'd done. He darted in and out between buildings and various areas of cover, pulling comrades to safety and applying field first aid as needed. He'd been applying a tourniquet to Corporal Matthews when he'd seen it: motion in one of the building's windows to his left. He'd given no indication he'd seen the sniper, discretely watching the shooter set up. He'd leapt into action when aim was being taken, hardly thinking as he'd pulled his handgun, aimed, and fired. The window shattered in a spray of glass and the would-be shooter had fallen. Headshot.

He had rightfully impressed his superiors and comrades alike with that particular shot, and continuously proved it hadn't been a fluke. Eventually his tally rose to double digits. He rose in rank and made a name for himself. "Captain Gibraltar" they called him for his sturdiness, his unshakable calm, and seeming invincibility. He had luck as well as skill during his time abroad, and tended to rush headlong into a battle zone to save a comrade from certain death. He was never injured. Well, at least until he was. Bugger that.

So when he'd figured it out, he had been rightfully furious. All but torn 221B Baker Street to pieces, brick by brick. If Mrs. Hudson (seriously, the woman should be put up for sainthood with how often she had to deal with insanity brought about by her tenants) hadn't interfered, he probably would have dismantled the whole bloody street. After his rage had simmered down into a low boil, the calm had returned. He'd felt like he was back in Afghanistan, about to face down insurgents. The adrenaline flowed, his tremor stopped, his limp vanished. He'd grabbed his Browning and gone out to the street, calm as can be and systematically shot out the CCTV cameras with a blank, bored expression that wouldn't have been out of place on a paler, more angular face.

The resolute return of "Captain Gibraltar" and his little display had obviously caught the attention of the man he'd wanted to notice his tantrum. He'd willingly gotten into the sleek black sedan that pulled up before 221B and sat beside the woman he knew only as "Anthea" without a word. The warehouse the sedan had rolled into was annoyingly predictable and aggravatingly clichéd. He couldn't help but make a connection to the first time he'd met the elder Holmes. He'd surprised the man them and he would do so again.

'Teach me.'

'You'll have to clarify your request, Doctor Watson. I fear I am not certain as to what you wish me to teach you.'

Adrenaline and fury still singing in his blood, he yanked the taller man down with a swift and unforgiving jerk, glaring into Mycroft's face with ferocity that usually only ever arose when the younger Holmes was being threatened or badmouthed.

'Teach me how to observe.'

And teach Mycroft had. It took many torturous months of the elder Holmes' patient tutoring, but John was learning. He learned to observe with finesse his estranged flat mate would have been proud of, noticing things he'd never given thought to before. Like how the man across from him on the tube was having an affair with his secretary, as indicated by the dirtiness of his wedding band and the overlapping scents of two different women's perfumes. The pen behind his ear had a smudge of red lipstick on the end of it, from where the secretary nibbled on it as she jotted down notes for her boss. Why did he have the pen? Sentiment. The man was worried his wife would discover his infidelity, hence the bouquet of cheap roses in his hands. It was clearly an afterthought, as the flowers were not being handled with care. That spoke volumes about the marriage alone.

Calculating blue eyes shifted from one person to the next, observing and noticing, giving himself no more than two minutes for each shallow analysis. Adulterer, claustrophobic but obviously in therapy, on his way to a first date, worried about her—sister? No, _fiancé_—in the hospital, stressed art student, a tired father obviously contemplating the value of divorce. His gaze flickered from head to toe, picking up clues and cues. It was thrilling, and he understood now why the consulting detective adored showing off so much. Thankfully, the ex-soldier didn't like to shoot his mouth off, and had a humble personality to a fault. He wasn't like his best friend. He could tone down his skill.

While the Doctor hadn't the time to hone the skill to the art form his estranged flat mate had it at, he was obviously good. Very good. He'd developed a good rapport with Mycroft through the months of tutoring, and promised the man he would never hesitate to help in his best friend's hunt if his services were ever needed. The elder Holmes was grateful, and John could honestly say he considered the man to have redeemed himself somewhat after his betrayal. He owed a lot to Mycroft. Because of the man's patience and assistance, he could afford to keep 221B. Because of Mycroft, John could carry on the Work that was so dreadfully missed—by his estranged flat mate as well as himself. He missed the thrill crime scenes brought. He hadn't been to one since the Fall, not for lack of trying on Lestrade's part. When he'd finally stepped foot onto one again it had sent a tingle of anticipation up his spine, making him all but vibrate.

He remembered when the call came, a year, two months, and four days after the Fall.

'Doctor John Watson.'

'John? It's Greg Lestrade.'

'Detective Inspector,' John had replied smoothly, keeping his distaste from his voice, 'what can I do for you?'

'Um,' the DI had sounded uncomfortable, 'we could use your help. If you're willing, that is.'

He was ready. He couldn't have gotten to the crime scene fast enough. The Yarders had been surprised when John showed up at all, calmly ducking under the yellow caution tape and striding easily past a gawking Donovan, his coat billowing behind him in a manner befitting a certain consulting detective. The looks he got made him puff up in pride, and silently he thanked Mycroft again for helping him find a coat similar to his flat mate's trusty Belstaff. It made him feel like he had a piece of the younger Holmes with him all the time. Lieutenant Sally had tried to speak to him, but he'd coolly dismissed her, the Captain in him barring no room for argument.

'Lieutenant, if you could kindly take your chatter elsewhere it would be much appreciated. I've been asked here by Detective Inspector Lestrade, and I have no desire to make small talk. You can make yourself useful and show me to him.'

Of course, the use of his "Army John" voice (as his flat mate had so affectionately named it) had made her bristle and obey, but she'd sent him dirty looks the whole way. He'd ignored her, walking tall and confident beside her, his spine set into the rigid military posture that had given him away back in that lab at Bart's. The whispers were loud in his ears, and he observed as he walked, warming himself up. Anderson and Sally were still carrying on their affair it seemed, judging by the state of Sally's knees and the scent of her deodorant. He turned his attention to the case, revisiting what Lestrade had told him over the phone. It was a chain of four murders, obviously connected. But the New Scotland Yard had seemed to find it impossible to find the dots to draw the lines between.

Walking into the seedy motel, the Doctor had ignored the indignant protest from the forever incompetent and annoying ME at his presence before pulling his gloves off and standing before the surprised—but pleased and relieved, John had noticed—DI, offering a polite smile.

'Let's get to work then, yeah?'

Greg had smiled gratefully and led the way to room 302. Stepping in, the scent of copper and iron and sex had sent the adrenaline coursing through his veins. His mind focused with an almost painful intensity on the room and various articles sprawled across the floors, blue eyes sharpening with alarming concentration before he turned that acute attention to the victim. In two long strides, he had been hovering over the victim's body as it had lain sprawled on the bed. His eyes jumped from one spot on her body to the next, never lingering. He'd snapped on the latex gloves, examining the body with an almost feverish focus.

Lestrade had obviously only expected a cause of death or perhaps a slight insight on the case, but John had no desire to underplay his skill to the Detective Inspector. The man obviously felt awful for what had happened to the consulting detective, but the fact of the matter was that the younger Holmes' name had yet to be cleared. John was determined to broadcast the ability his flat mate had wielded was never faked, and he was going to prove it by using the exact same skills.

'So, um, John,' Greg asked, 'thoughts?'

The Doctor stood slowly and calmly, removing his gloves with an audible snap.

'The victim is Amy Kingston, twenty seven years of age. She's an escort, belonging to Eloquent Escort Services. She was obviously not new to the job, judging by the way her makeup and nails have been meticulously done up. She enjoyed her work, liked the attention she got from men, given by her dress, which is clearly cut to be alluring but still offering some sense of mystery. She liked leaving things to her client's imagination.

'Cause of death was not the obvious stab wound, which due to lack of blood flow was done post-mortem. This was definitely an intentional overdose, judging by the slight froth remaining on the corner of her lips and the bloodshot eyes. Without looking at the tox-screen, I'd assume arsenic mixed with rohypnol that had been added to her wine—no, no, her martini. She's not a wine drinker. Teeth aren't stained.

'There's no obvious bruising, indicating that she did not fight back; hence, the rohypnol. She'd been too drugged to fight. The only one to get close to her would be the one who hired her. Clearly the murderer was her client, and judging by the footprints on this god awful carpeting, he is approximately one hundred eighty eight centimetres, fifteen stone, and a size eleven shoe. Male pattern balding and carries his weight around his middle. Drags his feet. Her phone will have his information. Do you have it?'

The silence in the room had been so thick John could have cut it with a knife. Greg had looked like someone sucker punched him in the testicles. Blue eyes had skipped around the people in the room, noting that some of the Yarders in the hallway had been stunned still and silent. A sense of pride had threatened to overwhelm the good Doctor for a brief moment before it passed and humility took control. He'd smiled at the DI.

'Well? Do you have it or not?'

And just like that, the game was on. John had asked for photos and information on the other murders, and noted with satisfaction that the cause of death was the same amongst all four. It took him about six hours of contemplation and deduction to discover where the murderer would strike again, and warned NSY accordingly. An hour later had seen him darting through London's alleyways, hot in pursuit of the murderer. Upon catching the killer, the DI had voiced his shock at the seemingly newfound skills the Doctor wielded with aplomb, eagerly accepting any assistance from there on out without hesitation.

John knew he was both appreciated and despised when he set foot on the crime scenes. He was appreciated because he was amiable, if not coolly dismissive to those who unwisely chose to badmouth his best friend in proximity to his person, and despised because his skill was so unnervingly similar to the younger Holmes' it often made people even more uncomfortable than his estranged flat mate had ever made them. The Doctor couldn't always take cases when Greg needed him, for reasons he quite literally couldn't offer without certain end to his life. After all, he had offered his assistance to a certain individual with a minor position in the British Government (read: the British Government) and said individual was keen on using that offer to its fullest potential.

Mycroft never really did anything out of the kindness of his own heart, unless it was for his decidedly alive younger brother. John had known that full heartedly. He wanted to help his estranged flat mate any way he could, but knew that if he let it slip that he knew the younger Holmes was alive, it would jeopardise everything. That was why he offered in the first place; he knew Mycroft would want someone unfailingly loyal were he going to send said someone to watch over his younger sibling. Mycroft paid generously for continued service knowing very well John couldn't afford 221B without income, and since the Doctor had left the surgery as a kneejerk reaction after the Fall, Doctor John H. Watson became Mycroft's personal—and entirely anonymous—assassin.

No one had any clue that when John went away for days at a time that he was flying all over the globe to end the lives of people threatening his estranged flat mate's livelihood. Mycroft knew how defensive the Doctor became when people threatened the younger Holmes, having seen it himself countless times. There was never any hesitation when the army doctor looked down the barrel of one of his specialized, silenced, untraceable weapons and pulled the trigger. Once, on the job in Germany, John had caught sight of Moriarty's minion before his flat mate did and reacted so fast he'd forgotten his silencer. The gunshot was an instant kill, but the reverb had caught the supposedly-dead man's attention. Steely, iridescent green seemed to lock with roiling ocean blue and John couldn't have gotten out of there fast enough. He'd gotten a subdued tongue lashing for his lapse in judgement, but the army doctor didn't care. His insistence that there hadn't been enough time to silence the shot was resolute. John knew his ability to place his best friend's livelihood over his continued obscurity sometimes threw his employer for a loop. But he frankly didn't give a flying shit what Mycroft thought. It was all for him.

Time went by steadily, a stream of cases with NSY (_'her cousin' 'his mother' 'ask about the brother' 'crime of passion' 'serial killer'_)and shiny black sedans (_'hello, John' 'Russia' 'China' 'Ukraine' 'Italy' 'Spain' 'US' 'thank you, John'_) crawling to his door in the night. He killed and solved in equal parts and the life slowly bled back into him. No one aside from Mycroft—and perhaps Anthea—really knew the mourning he displayed was falsified, exaggerated. He'd gone back to the way he'd been when his flat mate was still in bloody London, but he kept that to himself and John preferred it that way.

He knew that his utterly brilliant and maddeningly stupid best friend was tearing apart Moriarty's crime network from the shadows, moving undetected as only a dead man could do. John wasn't going to risk accidentally exposing his best friend's livelihood, and that was why John pretended to remain in mourning. Not a single soul could know that he was aware his best friend was alive, that the brilliant man was working overtime to keep the few-and-far-between friends he had safe.

Sometimes John wished he'd been formally informed of his best friend's safety, but it was never officially revealed to him. Desperately, he wanted to know the consulting detective was okay aside from the times he got to observe from the shadows on Mycroft's missions. He needed to know that the consulting detective was as safe as he could be; unravelling the web of madness Moriarty had spun with efficiency and skill that only the brilliant man could possess.

He believed in Sherlock Holmes. He'd never stopped believing, even when all the evidence pointed to the man being a fake. Doctor John Hamish Watson, Captain of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers had never faltered in his belief, standing resolute and sure footed until eventually the truth of the consulting detective's framing had been revealed: Sherlock's name had been cleared after two years, five months, three weeks, and two days. And now all John wanted was for the bloody annoying genius to get his skinny arse home.

Mycroft did offer assurances, occasionally imparting various things the younger Holmes had said to the elder during moments of weakness and loneliness on the road. John's heart ached for his flat mate. He no longer pretended to be ignorant as to the reasons behind his obsessive and compulsive worrying, his extreme empathy for the absent man. He supposed that perhaps it had happened that day they'd met in the lab at Bart's, the day John had offered Sherlock his phone and the brilliant man had asked 'Afghanistan or Iraq?'

John Watson loved Sherlock Holmes, unequivocally and unconditionally. He couldn't find a real label for it, the emotion sometimes running platonically, sometimes with a familial comfort, and sometimes with a romanticism that knocked him back a few steps in its' passion. At first he'd found himself in a sexuality crisis; he'd always identified as heterosexual, never looking twice at men with regards to romantic or sexual desire. But he came to realize it didn't matter. It was Sherlock and everything else was unimportant. Everything else was just transport. He accepted his feelings whole-heartedly a month and a half after the revelation and stopped searching for a partner; after all, he technically already had one, away on a very important mission. He was in love with the brilliant sod, and probably had been since laughing in the stairwell after their first of many traipses through the winding paths of London.

_'That was ridiculous! That was the most ridiculous thing I've ever done!'_  
_'_You_ invaded Afghanistan.'_  
_'That wasn't just me.'_

The Doctor knew he was going to see Sherlock again. Mycroft had been making arrangements, since learning the power of deduction the man could hide nothing from John. It was telling from the smudged ink on the man's fingertips, the extra lines in his face despite the sparkle in his dark eyes, the rapid weight loss indicating lack of time for food or rest. It was all so obvious, and it filled John with so much joy he felt like his heart would overflow. It was only a matter of time. He'd already waited three years to be reunited with the man he loved, what was a little more time?

* * *

**A/N: **Please leave a review and let me know your thoughts! Thanks much for reading!


End file.
